Just Love Someone
by CaptainTish
Summary: A happier ending for Laura and Bill. Spoilers for Daybreak. AU. COMPLETE.


**Just Love Someone**

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Battlestar Galactica.

**Author's Note**: I had to write this. I needed a happier ending for Bill and Laura.

* * *

"JUMP!!" Starbuck shouted, and reality twisted in on itself.

Laura blinked and looked around at a dark and empty CIC. Everybody had disappeared -- Bill, who just moments ago had been holding her in his arms; Kara, who had been inputting the jump coordinates; Sharon, who had been holding Hera.

"Hera," she whispered in a sudden panic, looking around for the small child she had just spent the last fifteen minutes frantically chasing through the ship. The little girl was nowhere to be seen.

She heard a voice coming from the upper level of the core, and quickly hurried in that direction. It wasn't until she was halfway up the stairs that she realized all the pain had gone and her strength returned. At the top of the stairs she whipped her head in the direction of the voice, and she was momentarily distracted from the sight of Sam Anders laying in a bath of goo, by the feel of her hair hitting her face. _Her hair_. She brought her hands up to feel the long strands of her hair, her _real_ hair that she hadn't felt in months. She shook her head in bewilderment, and took a few steps toward Sam.

"The Dying Leader will know the Truth of the Opera House. End of Line."

A new voice spoke from behind her. "You've done well, Laura."

She whirled around and saw her old friend Elosha. "Who are you? Why am I here again?" she gestured to indicate the dark, abandoned Galactica that she had visited once before, during her sojourn on the rebel Cylon basestar.

Elosha just smiled. "Come. I want to show you something."

Laura followed Elosha into the corridors of the deserted battlestar. "What _is_ the truth of the Opera House? If I'm the Dying Leader, I'd like to know before I die."

"Hera is safe. That's all that matters now. You played your part. Your role is over."

Elosha led her into the observation lounge, and Laura stopped in her tracks at the view out the window. A planet, a blue and green sphere, covered in wispy white clouds. Elosha smiled at her shocked expression. "Humanity's new home."

Laura walked closer to the observation window. Her eyes filled with tears. "The Promised Land. It's so beautiful." Then bitterness and regret filled her voice. "But I won't get to see it, will I?"

Elosha shook her head. "Laura, I told you, the Ancients were wrong about a lot of things. Right this minute, the woman who has been called the 'harbinger of death' is leading mankind to its new beginning, not its end. This is Galactica's last jump. After this, the cycle of destruction will have been broken. All of this has happened before. But it doesn't have to happen again."

Then the room around Laura blinked out of existence, and she found herself back in the chaos of the CIC. Lights were blinking, alarms were blaring, and the bulkheads of the ship were groaning. For a moment, she feared the ship would collapse in on them. Bill had moved a few feet away at the situation table, and Tigh was giving a report. "Wherever we are, we're here to stay."

Laura thought about the planet Elosha had shown her and she looked at Kara. "Where have you taken us, Kara?"

Kara was uncharacteristically speechless.

Laura pulled herself to her feet. She ached all over, but she slowly came to realizes that it was just aches and pains from the tumble she had taken during the recent battle, not the constant pain she had been in from her illness these past several months. She was tired, too, but it was the fatigue that came from chasing a small child around the ship, and hiding from deadly robots, not the exhaustion that she'd felt as her life had slowly ebbed away. In a moment of slightly irrational (and she admitted vain) hope, she brought her hands up to feel her hair, but she still wore her wig; her hair had not miraculously grown back.

She walked over to Bill, and he pulled her into a hug. "You sure you're all right?"

She looked at him, not knowing quite how to respond. "I'm fine." The simple statement shocked her more than anything else had this day. "Bill -- I'm _fine_."

* * *

"This world is so beautiful. There's so much life," Laura said appreciatively, as she and Bill walked hand in hand across the grassy plain.

"It's a rich continent. More wildlife than the twelve colonies put together. I'm looking for a nice place for that cabin. Maybe a garden. I don't have much of a green thumb, so I'm hoping you do."

She laughed. "Well, I'm afraid you're out of luck, there, mister."

They veered to walk down closer to the river, and came close enough to wave to the tent that had been set up as a sort of command center. Lee and Romo waved back. They were organizing most of the settlement efforts.

Bill chuckled. "Lee came up with the craziest idea this morning. Said we shouldn't establish any kind of urban settlement here. Wanted us to give up all technology and scatter and go traipsing off to all corners of the planet with nothing more than the clothes on our backs and a few provisions."

Laura snorted in amusement. "Oh, Bill, I love Lee, you know I do, but sometimes . . ."

"I know. Me too."

They shared a moment of silent amusement as they walked along the riverbank, watching the strange but beautiful pink birds frolicking in the water.

"No, you know, the only way we're going to make it work this time, Bill, is to take into account the mistakes of the past. Humans, Cylons, the Natives of this world, we've got to find a way to all live together, with all of our flaws, but sharing the best parts of ourselves. I think we've made a good start already in that direction with the Alliance."

Bill nodded. "Remember how the Cylons were starting to add their pictures to the memory wall on Galactica? It's already happening again down here. People are starting to put their pictures up in a tent set aside just for that. Human pictures, Cylon pictures.......they're all mixed together."

"Hmmm. I think that's the way it's got to be, Bill. The way it should be."

They approached a raptor set down in the field nearby. "You want to go see the spot I'm thinking would be a good place for a cabin?"

Laura smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. "Yes, I very much would."

They were stopped from climbing aboard the raptor by the voice of Kara Thrace, who had her arm linked through Lee's. "Where are you two crazy kids taking off to?"

Bill and Laura turned to speak to the two younger people. "What do you hear, Starbuck?" Bill asked, with a smile.

"Nothing but the rain."

"Then grab the gun, and bring in the cat."

Bill and Kara grinned at each other, and Laura asked Lee, "So, when they open up nominations next week for the elections, are you going to throw your hat in the ring?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Kara and I were also tossing the idea around of going exploring. Taking a raptor and doing some reconnaissance. Maybe climbing a few mountains. Besides, now that your cancer's gone, you could be president still."

She laughed. "Oh, no. Now that we're finally here, and not running anymore, I'm ready to enjoy a quiet life for a change."

"Huh," Starbuck said, "Quiet -- I've wondered before what that's like. We'll see you guys tonight for dinner?"

"Yeah, see you there."

Once Laura and Bill were in the air, and soaring toward the spot Bill had wanted to show her, she said, "After all the time I spent grooming him to take over for me, he wants to go _climb mountains_?"

"The boy's always had a hard time deciding what to do with his life. Doesn't matter. We've got all the time in the world now." He reached out and took her hand, giving it a squeeze.

"Yes, we do," she said, leaning back in her seat with a contented sigh, squeezing back, grateful for the miracle of being here on Earth, alive and healthy again. And Elosha's voice echoed once more in her head.

_Just love someone._


End file.
